1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a steering wheel assembly with a centralized control system wherein input or output means, such as a variety of switches for display devices etc., are concentrated on a center pad of the steering wheel, and more particularly to a steering wheel assembly with a centralized control system wherein the input or output means are arranged as an input or output part of the assembly and the input or output part thereof is constructed to be selectively exchangeable as necessitated.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional steering wheel equipment is disclosed in Japanese patent application (Published unexamined patent application No. 33547/1983). In this conventional equipment, a center pad is mounted on a steering shaft and a variety of switches are fixedly disposed on the aforesaid center pad, and these switches are also electrically connected to a variety of control devices disposed within the vehicle body, such as a horn, car radio, air-conditioner, automatic drive and the like, thereby to control these devices.
On the other hand, recently, a vehicle, particularly, an automobile has been required to have many electronic control devices therein and therefore, control switches for these devices and display for indicating conditions of these devices are also increased in the number thereof. Moreover, not only has the demand for this kind of car been widely increased but also the variety of needs of users have been increased. Further, in view of the convenience and the improvement of reliability of operation, signal input means such as switches or signal output means such as displayes have a tendency to be centralized at the center pad.
However, in the aforesaid conventional equipment in which the switches are fixedly disposed to the center pad, it is impossible to dispose of all the switches which can be expected to be necessary, because the center pad is very limited in its practical space. As a result, only a predetermined number of switches can be disposed at the center pad, namely, only devices corresponding to the number of limited switches can be controlled. Therefore, the conventional type of equipment has been impossible to easily respond to user's demands. Moreover, the control devices mounted on automobiles are also different in every kind of the automobiles so that an individual center pad has been required for every kind of the automobile. Thus, there have been many problems in the prior art.